17 Numbers That Prove That The Redistribution Of Wealth Has Greatly Accelerated Under Obama

What is the number one job of the U.S. government? Well, at this point the federal government in spending more time and money on redistributing wealth than it is on anything else. In fiscal year 2012, 62 percent of the federal budget will be spent on entitlements. How much farther do we have to go until everyone finally admits that we have become a socialist nation? Our government has become the largest engine of wealth redistribution in the history of the world, and the redistribution of wealth has greatly accelerated during the presidency of Barack Obama. Yes, wealth redistribution as a share of the economy also grew under George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, but Barack Obama has taken things to an entirely new level. Back when Ronald Reagan took office, less than 30 percent of all Americans lived in a home where at least one person was receiving government benefits. Today, an all-time record 49 percent of all Americans live in a home where at least one person receives government benefits. Of course we always want to help the poor, the needy and those that cannot help themselves, but things in this country have gotten way out of balance. And most Americans agree with me – according to a new Rasmussen survey, 64 percent of all Americans believe that too many Americans are dependent on government assistance. We have become a nation that expects the government to take care of us from the cradle to the grave, and all of this government dependence is causing our debt to spiral completely and totally out of control.

Yes, without a doubt we will always need a safety net. Nobody wants to see any American go without food or sleep under a bridge.

But we simply cannot afford to have more than 100 million Americans relying on that safety net. It was never designed to accommodate so many people and the entire system is going to fail if we continue with this foolishness.

Sadly, a large percentage of the American people have become trained to vote for the politician that will promise them the most goodies. Government benefits have become a way to “buy votes”, and it is deeply corrupting our system.

A growing percentage of the American people are actually convinced that the job of the federal government is to act as some sort of cosmic Robin Hood. They are convinced that the federal government should take money away from the rich and give it to them.

But what kind of a society will we have if we continue down this road? Will we have a society where the “dependent class” is always clamoring for more and where the “working class” has no ambition to work hard and make money because the government is just going to come along and take most of it away?

Socialism does not work. But that is where the United States (along with most of the rest of the world) is headed.

The following are 17 numbers that prove that the redistribution of wealth has greatly accelerated since Barack Obama has been president….

#1 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an all-time record 49 percent of all Americans live in a home where at least one person receives financial assistance from the federal government. Back in 1983, that number was less than 30 percent.

#2 Right now, more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government. And that does not even count Social Security or Medicare. Overall, there are almost 80 different “means-tested welfare programs” that the federal government is currently running.

#3 The number of Americans enrolled in the food stamp program has grown from about 17 million in 2000 to 31.9 million when Barack Obama took office to 46.6 million today.

#4 The number of Americans receiving Social Security disability payments has risen by more than a million since Obama has been in office.

#5 The growth of government dependence is far outpacing job growth in the United States even though we are supposed to be in an “economic recovery”. Between the beginning of April and the end of June, the U.S. economy added only 200,000 new jobs, but 246,000 more Americans were added to the Social Security disability program and 265,000 more Americans were added to the food stamp rolls.

#6 Back in August 1967, there were approximately 65 workers for each American that was collecting Social Security disability payments. Today, there are only 16.2 workers for each American that is collecting Social Security disability payments.

#8 Back in 1990, the federal government accounted for just 32 percent of all health care spending in the United States. This year, it is being projected that the federal government will account for more than 50 percent of all health care spending for the first time ever.

#9 The number of Americans on Medicaid grew from 34 million in 2000 to 54 million in 2011.

#12 Medicare is also growing by leaps and bounds. As I wrote about the other day, if current policies continue it is being projected that the number of Americans on Medicare will grow from 50.7 million in 2012 to 73.2 million in 2025.

#13 Thanks to our foolish politicians (including Obama), Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38 trillion dollars over the next 75 years. That comes to approximately $328,404 for each and every household in the United States.

#15 As I have written about previously, the number of Americans living below the poverty line has risen by 6 million since Barack Obama became president.

#16 Overall, the amount of money that the federal government gives directly to the American people has risen by 32 percent since Barack Obama first took office.

#17 When you account for all government transfer payments and all forms of government employment, more than half of all Americans are now at least partially financially dependent on the government.

The other day, the mainstream media went crazy over the “scandal” that Mitt Romney said the following at a fundraiser….

There are 47 percent who will vote for the President, no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent on the government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it…. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn’t connect. And so my job is not to worry about those people — I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

The mainstream media howled in outrage about this, but to a certain extent Romney was right.

Of course the Republicans should have never nominated Romney, and Romney is running one of the most inept campaigns in the history of American politics, but Romney actually hit on some truth in that quote.

You can debate about what the exact number is, but the reality is that a growing number of Americans are satisfied with being dependent on the government and believe that the government should have a responsibility to take care of them.

Not that it is wrong to help the poor. Of course not. There are many people out there that honestly cannot take care of themselves, and almost everyone needs a helping hand at some point in their lives.

But there is a balance, and as a nation we have gotten way, way out of balance.

Of course it certainly doesn’t help that most of the burden for paying for all of this welfare always seems to end up falling on the middle class.

The wealthy have become absolute masters at avoiding taxes. For example, Mitt Romney paid an effective tax rate of only 14.1 percent for the 2011 tax year.

If I could pay an effective tax rate of only 14.1 percent to the federal government I would be screaming for joy. So would most middle class Americans. Unfortunately, we don’t have the resources to hire expensive tax attorneys who know how to exploit the thousands upon thousands of loopholes in the tax code.

Our tax code is a complete and total abomination and should be immediately abolished. Unfortunately, neither political party is suggesting that we do that. In fact, both political parties seem to really like things just the way that they are.

So the middle class will continue to get the short end of the stick and our national debt will continue to explode.

You see, the reality is that socialism is really, really expensive. In fact, the U.S. national debt has increased by 51 percent since Barack Obama took office.

Since Obama was inaugurated, the U.S. national debt has grown by more than it did from the time that George Washington became president to the beginning of Bill Clinton’s second term as president.

That is no small feat.

The federal government continues to throw money around as if there is no tomorrow, but the truth is that tomorrow always comes and our children and our grandchildren are going to be less than thrilled that we expect them to pay the 16 trillion dollar debt that we have foolishly run up.

But the mainstream media says that everything is just fine. They are constantly praising Barack Obama, and top financial journalists such as Paul Krugman of the New York Times are proclaiming that the answer to our problems is to borrow and spend trillions more.

Thankfully, an increasing number of Americans are waking up to this nonsense.

According to a new Gallup survey, an all-time record high 60 percent of all Americans have little or no trust in the mainstream media.

I think that is a good sign.

What do you think? Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below….

50 Responses

First of all, thank you for separating the welfare folks from the retirees in your second point. Now, if I agree some social programs need to be trimmed. Can you agree, we need to stop being involved in wars all over the planet? While we are thinking about wars, how about we stop the war on drugs? Since the 1960`s we have spent well over a trillion on that. What have we gained from any of these wars? At least when prohibition did not work, they repealed it. We do not have the courage to fix our mistakes nowadays. Last but not least. How about we stop locking people up, for darn near everything. The last figure I saw, says it costs 40 grand per person, to keep someone in prison for 1 year. And yet we have the biggest prison population of any Country on earth. Add your social cuts, to my war, and prison cuts. We pay off the national debt, in less then twenty years. Too bad the people in charge, will not do any of these things.

Hi Michael…I can honestly attest to the discouragement that the “working class” are feeling right now. I always try and remember to be thankful and say prayers of gratitude for the blessings I have, however I can tell you that my wife and I are getting more and more exhausted.

Straight forward payroll taxes nailed us for $35k last year and the dozens of other taxes are often over-looked but also hitting us harder and harder.
My wife works 14 hour shifts at her dialysis clinic 3 days a week and every other weekend. On the Tuesdays and thursdays she has off she ends up resting half the day to give her poor feet a break since a nurse on her feet 14 straight hours of continual busyness is exhausting.
On top of that, her company has had a pay freeze for 3 years, has dropped Holidays down to just 2 per year ( Thanksgiving and Christmas of which she must work 1 of them), has canceled the reimbursement of her CEU’s ( medical professionals are required to continue to take schooling and classes for their entire career in order to renew their licenses) –also they no longer match 401k’s and her company health plan just bumped up $30 per week!!

I put in so many hours at times that when I get home I am too tired to eat. I come home, change clothes/shower and go straight to bed–this is not living. I try and keep up with my volunteer work and rounds at our local nursing home but something is going to have to give. My caseloads are growing and growing and people are making appts 2-3 weeks in advance. I never had a schedule so filled in advance before. I usually have more long-term pt’s with needs of stroke, Parkinson’s, traumatic brain injuries..but now ortho pt’s are scheduling surgeries as to when I’ll have slots for hip replacement and knee replacement rehab time.

I’m ground down and in the mean time everything is getting more expensive, they keep taking more of my money I earn and we are having all of our benefits cut or completely stopped.

This is why socialism doesn’t work because eventually the producers become weary of carrying the fibromyalgia and depression people. The unwed mothers and the chronic back pts…the “diseased” alcoholic or the guy who is permanately disabled because of headaches from stress.. the 300 pound obese lady whose knees won’t support her weight or the COPD pt who has to be on O2 continually because of 25 years of smoking…I could go on and on but I think I’ve made the point about us middle class people and our level of frustration right now.

PS: Michael, have you ever stepped back and asked, Why do we have to renew our driver’s license every 3 or 4 years or the tags on our cars every 2 years? If nothing has changed then the info is still good. If I still have the car and it is running and has not changed ownership-why must I renew? If I have obeyed the laws and my license is in good stead, why must I get a new one? These are the hidden taxes I speak of. Why must we pay tolls all up and down the northeast? The department of transportation and the interstates are supposedly covered by my federal taxes–why must I pay tolls? I pay taxes to earn my money and they tax me to spend it..and through inflation they are taxing me if I just save it. If I invest in a home they tax me property tax, if I invest in retirement portfolio it is capital gains…heck, they even tax the interest it earns…we are not free in this country. We already are a socialist nation however as long as people have electronic gizmos, facebook/twitter etc and the idiot box full of unreality TV then the masses will be placated and not even look up from their texting long enough to realize that they have very little control of their lives left–and getting less every day.

“The fact that a man has no claim on others (i.e., that it is not their moral duty to help him and that he cannot demand their help as his right) does not preclude or prohibit good will among men and does not make it immoral to offer or to accept voluntary, non-sacrificial assistance.

It is altruism that has corrupted and perverted human benevolence by regarding the giver as an object of immolation, and the receiver as a helplessly miserable object of pity who holds a mortgage on the lives of others—a doctrine which is extremely offensive to both parties, leaving men no choice but the roles of sacrificial victim or moral cannibal . . . .

To view the question in its proper perspective, one must begin by rejecting altruism’s terms and all of its ugly emotional aftertaste—then take a fresh look at human relationships. It is morally proper to accept help, when it is offered, not as a moral duty, but as an act of good will and generosity, when the giver can afford it (i.e., when it does not involve self-sacrifice on his part), and when it is offered in response to the receiver’s virtues, not in response to his flaws, weaknesses or moral failures, and not on the ground of his need as such.”

A couple of years ago I was one of the dreaded “47%” in the sense that I got a small federal tax refund ($39) at the end of the year. However, payroll taxes took about 15% of my income–incidentally, more than Romney’s 14.1%.

You are not part of the 47% the since social security tax is that, a tax. All of you out there if you don’t like the tax rate on capital gains, change the law or better yet lower the rest of the taxes to the same rate and cut government spending.

I know this is way off topic, but this is an issue that has been batting around the UK for about a year. The article mentions the men’s ethic background but not how thier religion clouds thier view of women. Any Anglo with daughters in cities with large Islamic populations may want to read this.

1 This history begins when Alexander the Great, son of Philip of Macedonia, marched from Macedonia and attacked Darius, king of Persia and Media. Alexander enlarged the Greek Empire by defeating Darius and seizing his throne. 2 He fought many battles, captured fortified cities, and put the kings of the region to death. 3 As he advanced to the ends of the earth, he plundered many nations; and when he had conquered the world, he became proud and arrogant. 4 By building up a strong army, he dominated whole nations and their rulers, and forced everyone to pay him taxes.

5-7 When Alexander had been emperor for twelve years, he fell ill and realized that he was about to die. He called together his generals, noblemen who had been brought up with him since his early childhood, and he divided his empire, giving a part to each of them. 8 After his death, the generals took control, 9 and each had himself crowned king of his own territory. The descendants of these kings ruled for many generations and brought a great deal of misery on the world.

Antiochus Epiphanes and the Renegade Jews

10 The wicked ruler Antiochus Epiphanes, son of King Antiochus the Third of Syria, was a descendant of one of Alexander’s generals. Antiochus Epiphanes had been a hostage in Rome before he became king of Syria in the year 137.[a]

11 At that time there appeared in the land of Israel a group of traitorous Jews who had no regard for the Law and who had a bad influence on many of our people. They said,
Let’s come to terms with the Gentiles, for our refusal to associate with them has brought us nothing but trouble. 12 This proposal appealed to many people, 13 and some of them became so enthusiastic about it that they went to the king and received from him permission to follow Gentile customs. 14 They built in Jerusalem a stadium like those in the Greek cities. 15 They had surgery performed to hide their circumcision, abandoned the holy covenant, started associating with[b] Gentiles, and did all sorts of other evil things.
Antiochus Attacks Egypt

16 When Antiochus had firmly established himself as king, he decided to conquer Egypt and rule that country as well as Syria. 17 He invaded Egypt with a large fleet of ships and a powerful army, including chariots, elephants, and cavalry. 18 When the attack came, King Ptolemy of Egypt turned and fled, and many of his soldiers were killed. 19 Antiochus was able to capture the fortified cities of Egypt and plunder the whole land.

Antiochus Persecutes the Jews

20 In the year 143,[c] after the conquest of Egypt, Antiochus marched with a great army against the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem. 21 In his arrogance, he entered the Temple and took away the gold altar, the lampstand with all its equipment, 22 the table for the bread offered to the Lord, the cups and bowls, the gold fire pans, the curtain, and the crowns. He also stripped all the gold from the front of the Temple 23 and carried off the silver and gold and everything else of value, including all the treasures that he could find stored there. 24 Then he took it all to his own country. He had also murdered many people and boasted arrogantly about it. 25 There was great mourning everywhere in the land of Israel.

26 Rulers and leaders groaned in sorrow.
Young men and young women grew weak.
The beauty of our women faded.
27 Every bridegroom sang a funeral song,
and every bride sat mourning in her room.
28 All our people were clothed with shame,
and our land trembled for them.
29 Two years later Antiochus sent a large army from Mysia[d] against the towns of Judea. When the soldiers entered Jerusalem, 30 their commander spoke to the people, offering them terms of peace and completely deceiving them. Then he suddenly launched a fierce attack on the city, dealing it a major blow and killing many of the people. 31 He plundered the city, set it on fire, and tore down its buildings and walls. 32 He and his army took the women and children as prisoners and seized the cattle.

33 Then Antiochus and his forces built high walls and strong towers in the area north of the Temple, turning it into a fort. 34 They brought in a group of traitorous Jews and installed them there. 35 They also brought in arms and supplies and stored in the fort all the loot that they had taken in Jerusalem. This fort became a great threat to the city.

36 The fort was a threat to the Temple,
a constant, evil menace for Israel.
37 Innocent people were murdered around the altar;
the Holy Place was defiled by murderers.
38 The people of Jerusalem fled in fear,
and the city became a colony of foreigners.
Jerusalem was foreign to its own people,
who had been forced to abandon the city.
39 Her Temple was as empty as a wilderness;
her festivals were turned into days of mourning,
her Sabbath joy into shame.
Her honor became an object of ridicule.
40 Her shame was as great as her former glory,
and her pride was turned into deepest mourning.
41-43 Antiochus now issued a decree that all nations in his empire should abandon their own customs and become one people. All the Gentiles and even many of the Israelites submitted to this decree. They adopted the official pagan religion, offered sacrifices to idols, and no longer observed the Sabbath.

44 The king also sent messengers with a decree to Jerusalem and all the towns of Judea, ordering the people to follow customs that were foreign to the country. 45 He ordered them not to offer burnt offerings, grain offerings, or wine offerings in the Temple, and commanded them to treat Sabbaths and festivals as ordinary work days. 46 They were even ordered to defile the Temple and the holy things in it.[e] 47 They were commanded to build pagan altars, temples, and shrines, and to sacrifice pigs and other unclean animals there. 48 They were forbidden to circumcise their sons and were required to make themselves ritually unclean in every way they could, 49 so that they would forget the Law which the Lord had given through Moses and would disobey all its commands. 50 The penalty for disobeying the king’s decree was death.

51 The king not only issued the same decree throughout his whole empire, but he also appointed officials to supervise the people and commanded each town in Judea to offer pagan sacrifices. 52 Many of the Jews were ready to forsake the Law and to obey these officials. They defiled the land with their evil, 53 and their conduct forced all true Israelites to hide wherever they could.

54 On the fifteenth day of the month of Kislev in the year 145,[f] King Antiochus set up
The Awful Horror on the altar of the Temple, and pagan altars were built in the towns throughout Judea. 55 Pagan sacrifices were offered in front of houses and in the streets. 56 Any books of the Law which were found were torn up and burned, 57 and anyone who was caught with a copy of the sacred books or who obeyed the Law was put to death by order of the king. 58 Month after month these wicked people used their power against the Israelites caught in the towns.
59 On the twenty-fifth of the month, these same evil people offered sacrifices on the pagan altar erected on top of the altar in the Temple. 60 Mothers who had allowed their babies to be circumcised were put to death in accordance with the king’s decree. 61 Their babies were hung around their necks, and their families and those who had circumcised them were put to death. 62 But many people in Israel firmly resisted the king’s decree and refused to eat food that was ritually unclean. 63 They preferred to die rather than break the holy covenant and eat unclean food—and many did die. 64 In his anger God made Israel suffer terribly.SOUND LIKE AMERICA ??ALEXANDER THE GREAT DIED OF FEVER IN BABYLON!!

What you didn’t mention is why many of those people are getting government assistance, and for the most part is not because they are lazy, its because many ‘good’ jobs have been lost (and that was before Obama) and people cannot survive on minimum wage so they need help, I don’t see why that is an issue. The Obamacare would not be an issue if it came out of taxes rather than a direct payment from businesses. People need to have access to healthcare, food and housing, we provide it for other countries so it should start at home! http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/resource/the-spirit-level

you are correct but if Michael actually said the truth by giving the entire story his conservative christian base would howl.
Why should tax payers subsudzie low wage jobs for a rich corporation like walmart???

I would call these welfare benefits corporate welfare as the scum bag corporations could easily pay a living wage and health insurance if the wealth and income was more evenly distributed.

These are the same ones who believe Jesus rode a dinasaur so do not expect to much intellectual horsepower from them.

Why must so many articles use the degrading term of “entitlements” when discussing the money people have spent years putting into government coffers to enhance their retirement-in terms of a form of annuity and health care! It would be different if these were government handouts-such as welfare- or perhaps disability in some cases-where money was not taken out of one’s paycheck for the future. Think about it, I, for one, spent over 40 years CONTRIBUTING TO SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE EACH PAYCHECK!! How can that be misconstrued into being a handout “entitlement”? Many seniors are now being denigrated and discriminated against because of this false labeling of “entitlements” by some politician’s and others. I also pay $200.00 a month on supplemental insurance to pay for health care. Medicare does NOT pay all my medical expenses! I’ll tell you who is really entitled-government employees that have a different,SUPERIOR. retirement and health care plan-one that is quite different from that of us ordinary citizens!

Social Security is a form of government welfare. I don’t hear you make a claim on all of the income taxes, sales taxes, fuel taxes, property taxes and any other fees going towards your future retirement checks. Social Security is just another tax like the rest of them. Congress has made a different set of rules in order to recieve the checks each month. All of the promises made by our elected leaders for entitlements need to be cut as we do not have the funds to continue to pay for them. Maybe the rules at first to collect Social Security should be changed to a safty net based on wealth. The same goes for medicare. You should at least use up your own wealth before you ask the taxpayers to pay your way. Why shoul the taxpayers pay for an electric scooter if you could use some of your own assets first. A knee replacement is not a life or death need. These make our old age more comfortable. I do not think that the taxpayers should pay with borrowed money to make my life more comfortable.

I’m sorry that this person paid so much in taxes over the years. I agree that life would have been better for him, his employees, and his patients, had there been no such tax. But what Thomas now seems to believe is that he has a right to the money being paid in by current workers. Sorry, he doesn’t.

The money that government took from him for all those years is gone, and there’s no way to get it back. That fact does not give anyone who paid taxes in the past the right to demand that current taxpayers hand over their money to make good on some mythical “contract” that some people seem to believe exists.

If someone robs me, that doesn’t give me the right to look around for someone else to rob and then say I’m only making up for past injustices. That position, which is analogous to Ronald Thomas’s position, is ludicrous and criminal.
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Only some self-righteous people feel compelled to maintain the fiction that their SS payments somehow aren’t wealth transfers from some other productive American.

Michael, I’m one of those business owners whom Obama said “didn’t build it myself.” Except that I did. I employ 8 people, gross just under $2 million a year (net WAY less than $1 million) and pay almost 29% in combined federal, state, and local taxes. When Obama tells me that in 2013, “everybody’s” taxes are going up, I get angry. I go to the grocery store and see people using the government card to buy better food than I feed my family. They drive nice cars and have jewelery and iPhones. Most of them are overweight. In my business, they use credit cards to pay for my services. Yet, the government defends the money spent on them and ridicules Romney for what he said?!?!? HE WAS RIGHT! There is a segment of society (growing, in my opinion) that honestly believes “government” should take care of them. Except that government doesn’t do it, it’s the taxpayers, the business owners who pay the confiscatory taxes under penalty of prison. If this continues, here’s what I AM going to do: I, working with my accountant, will determine to what level my income needs to shrink in order to reduce my tax burden but maintain my family’s standard of living. In order to accomplish that, I will by necessity be required to eliminate some positions. Not fire people, ELIMINATE POSITIONS. It’s a game, unfortunately, but I have no obligation to continue to pay even higher taxes in an economy that is shrinking (“Recovery”? That’s a joke.). I’m not alone, many of my business friends are planning the same strategy (We’ve had this conversation for more than two years, especially now that it looks like the voters are going to be stupid again and reelect this incompetent empty suit). Times are not good now. Send this guy back for four more and these will look like the “good ole days.”

@ Gary2 – Sounds like you are driven by greed and envy. America is going down the socialist path which has been tested and found wanting all over the world. Instead of higher taxes, we need much lower taxes and we need much, much, much smaller government, perhaps 30% of what we currently have. Get government back to its core functions. Get government out of stupid foreign wars. Encourage people to care for themselves. You folks in the good old U.S.A. had your chance with Ron Paul. Rejecting him, you are left with Obama and Obama-lite. Not much of a choice. Not much of a hope. In the end, though, people usually get the government they deserve.

Michael–again you leave out the corporate welfare and the socialism for the rich and brutal capitalism for the masses. Who got bailed out?? not the poor.

Corporate welfafre is a way bigger issue than ANY welfare for the poor. You know this Michael and I am dismayed that you constantly bash the poor while mostly ignoring the real issue–corporate welfare.

I wish Obama was a socialist. He is a moderate republican at best. The fact that folks call him a socialist simply shows how far right the republicans have fallen to the point they are crazy–todd akin, michelle bachman, paul ryan et al.

Comrades it is all for the good of the collective. You will give the fruits of your labors for the glorious future and social contract you didn’t sign. Equality of results for all except the elite at the top. Yes the fundamental transformation into Romania or Bulgaria will be hard but yes we can!

Despite the massive transfer of wealth to the investor class, which now has more money than ever to invest in private business, hopes of an improving jobs picture in our country are dismal. One with knowledge of the facts would literally have to be a moron to cling to the belief that further enriching those at the top will create widespread prosperity.

Our country’s economic policies have truly been redistributive in favor of the wealthiest. You can argue about which policies are to blame, but can’t deny that is what has happened. But I’m sure someone will.

According to conservatives we should be prepared to do with less money and a lower standard of living. (austerity) So how does this translate to my dentist, the shops where I buy food, to the internet provider and so on. Does this mean if my wages go down my dentist’ fees should as well? I bet he would not be amused. This kind of mind set is what’s wrong here, wages have been frozen for over 3 decades when you add in inflation. And yet for 50% of the nation and growing we are going to have to suck it up while 1% reap the rewards of being lucky enough to be in the investor class? In my opinion one only has to look back into history, and not to far back at that to see how that worked in the past. Not to well.

Gary2, here is something for you to think about.In the Afgan war we have spent 557 & 1/2 billion. In Bushes 7 years of the war 172 billion was spent and 630 lives of our soldiers were lost. In Obama’s 3 3/4 years 385 billion has been spent and 1491 soldiers have lost their lives. As a conservative we should have been out of there a long time ago but your leader of you party sucks, just look at his results. I don’t care for the neo cons,but you like to run down the republicans, but how are you democrats doing.

Comrade Marxist tripe never gets old. Marxism is the only way since it has been so successful everywhere it has been tried. We must take every dime from those evil rich people since they stole all our fortunes!

Das radio just announced annual gdp growth at 1.3% and annual incomes declined by 3000$. ***** it will be like so historic when annual gdp growth is 0%. Have you like umm seen how like cool the president is dude? ***** he is like so cool.

Wealth equity? We all want it
By George Wagner
Aug. 25, 2012
New York Times’ reporter Jeff Zeleney recently wrote that Mitt Romney and his allies were lacerating President Barack Obama as determined to expand government until the United States resembles Sweden. Think Paul Ryan or Tommy Thompson would disagree?
But Romney, Ryan and Thompson might be surprised to find out that both Republicans and Democrats favor a distribution of wealth much more like Scandinavian countries than our own. Research by Harvard Business School’s Michael Norton and Duke University’s Dan Ariely also document how mistaken Americans are about wealth distribution and social mobility.
Their study, titled “Building a Better America – One Wealth Quintile at a Time,” which appeared last year in the academic journal Perspectives in Psychological Science, can be found here. The two professors conducted a random survey of 5,500 Americans to create a countrywide representative sample.
When it comes to wealth inequity, it turns out that it’s worse than we thought.
Those surveyed were first asked to estimate the current distribution of wealth in the U.S.
People grossly misjudged the extent of wealth inequality today, believing that the top quintile (one-fifth, or 20%) owns 58% of the wealth. It’s actually 84%.
Few knew that the bottom 40% of the country owns only 0.3% of the wealth. And when you add in the next quintile, or 60% of the entire country, the bottom three-fifths of us only control a total of 4.4% of the total wealth. Finally, the quintile below the top own 11% of the wealth.
Then survey-takers were asked to “build a better America” by spreading the wealth around among five quintiles, richest to poorest, based on their own personal values. Respondents said that the richest top fifth should have only 32% of the total wealth. Quite a difference from the 84% that is the actual figure.
Of course, that’s just wealth. When we look at income trends, we see the gap between the top 20% and the rest of us widening. Now if giving the wealthy more money actually would produce more jobs for the rest of us. that would be one thing. But that didn’t happen under George W. Bush, whose presidency saw anemic job growth. Yet this is the formula our great “job creators” Romney, Ryan and Thompson tout.
In the survey, people were shown unlabeled pie charts divided differently, according to wealth distribution. They were told that each chart represented a different country and asked them which one they would like to join, if given the choice.
Two charts actually showed the wealth distribution of the U.S. and Sweden; 92% of Americans favored the Swedish model. In Sweden, the top 40% own 54% of the wealth, while the bottom 60% own 46%. A far cry from the U.S., where the bottom four-fifths owns a mere 16% of the wealth.
Most surprisingly, every demographic – including Republicans and the wealthy – favored a more equal distribution of wealth. Message to Romney, Ryan and Thompson: Isn’t it time you started advocating tax policies that will give Americans what they want?